Fury as Brazil loses museum
NATIONAL TREASURE: DIDN’T EVEN HAVE SPRINKLERS
Police fire tear gas at crowds angered by burning down of former Imperial Palace.
Rio de Janeiro
Anger smoldered in Brazil on Monday after a fire destroyed the National Museum, a cherished historical repository that lacked a sprinkler system and which had suffered years of financial neglect, making its ruination a “tragedy foretold.”
Outside the entrance to the elegant park housing the 200-yearold former Imperial Palace, police in riot gear shot tear gas into an angry crowd that tried to enter, live TV images showed. Later, police granted access to the site’s perimeter, which protesters surrounded in a symbolic “embrace.”
The rumbling tensions reflect anger over the destruction on Sunday of the much-loved yet dilapidated museum, which suffered from declining federal funding. It stirred emotions in Brazil, whose angry electorate is reeling from a frail economy, widespread graft and rising violence ahead of an unpredictable presidential election in October.
“Our community is very mobilised and very indignant,” said Roberto Leher, rector of the Rio de Janeiro federal university, which administers the museum.
Culture Minister Sergio Leitao told Estado de S.Paulo newspaper the blaze was likely caused by either an electrical short-circuit or a homemade paper hot-air balloon that may have landed on the roof. Launching such balloons is a long-held tradition in Brazil and they routinely cause fires.
Both possibilities were being considered, culture department spokesperson Roberta de Oliveira Ribeiro said in an e-mail, but the cause would not be known until an investigation was completed.
The Rio de Janeiro federal university
is the number of years the former Imperial Palace in Rio de Janeiro has been standing.
did not immediately respond to a question on whether the museum was insured.
The museum’s pastel-yellow facade remained standing after the blaze, but a peek inside its giant windows revealed a roofless interior of blackened hallways and charred beams. Every so often, firefighters emerged with a pot or a painting they had rescued.
The museum’s deputy director, Luiz Duarte, told Globo TV the institution had been neglected by successive federal governments.
Duarte said a 21.6 million real (R79 million) financing plan with the state-run BNDES bank announced in June included, ironically, a plan to install modern fire protection equipment. – Reuters